EXCHANGE INTERFACE

I made foccacia. It was good.

We also drew our hockey game on Sunday! 1-1!

(We won for the first time a couple of weeks back and it was Very Good.)

( hockey report )

I've spoken about how this is a tricksy year for hockey in a post earlier this year. But I am enjoying some of the games, even when we're getting beaten. And we are improving.

But it can still be frustrating to see players who aren't ready for this grade (and aren't improving) struggle in the face of it.

I kind of want to request more options for Just Married. But I don't have the time or energy to write a letter. This weekend is non-stop. Tonight I opted out of a movie I kind of wanted to see (Mickey 17 if you were wondering) because I'm just THAT TIRED and wanted time out.

--

I have no idea if these are valid, or behind paywalls or what. They're just articles I've been collecting for a bit.

( various links and whatnot )

--

I mean, I'm happy, but also tired... And I don't really have time to write (or do anything) right now. Partly work, but partly also my life, and partly also *gestures at the world* You know.

--

Have I mentioned that I've managed to grow broccoli in the garden? It's kind of AMAZING.



I don't have a more recent pic of the 'broccoli bed' (the one with the netting on it) where the broccoli are larger-sized. I'll try to take one tomorrow morning.

I'm thinking of you guys and praying for you.

*hugs*

Comments screened in case you want privacy.

But that's because I woke up at 2:30am and then read a book until 5:30 and doomscrolled until 6:30. Then had a nap.

But it's lunchtime now, I have (mostly) survived the morning after a long weekend ("King's Birthday" long weekend), and I think I might end up skipping hockey training tonight because my knee has been feeling a bit weird the last couple of weeks and maybe I should go to the physio and get it checked out?

IDK. Maybe see how it holds up this weekend? We're already down one player that we're probably going to need...

--

I think I'm going to sign up for iddyiddybangbang because I have a lot of exceedingly iddish stories that aren't going to get finished otherwise. I don't know if the creativity will come back, but I figure I should at least give it a go...

Now, the question of which story. Unfortunately most of the stories that I feel I want to finish and the ones that are half-done already. (Is the WIP Big Bang running this year? Anyone know?)

I know that I won't get many readers, I know that it's going to be something that not many people are going to read. I just want to get a few ideas out there.

--

Finished my 'the women sort out the MCU Civil War' fic.

The Civilian Peace (7073 words) by tielan
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Helen Cho & Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts
Characters: Helen Cho, Pepper Potts, Maria Hill, Jane Foster, Okoye (Marvel), T'Challa (Marvel), Avengers Team Members (Marvel), James "Bucky" Barnes
Additional Tags: Not Canon Compliant with Movie: Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Summary: What does it mean to be human, anyway?

Have a plan for the Psy-Changeling universe, it's gotten a little more complex.

--

Editing on the novel is going slowly; I just feel like it's boring and terrible and ugh. Which it might very well be. Are more dramatic things needed at this point? IDEK.

Writing on the new story is going to need at least one screen, preferably two. And a lot of editing. More ugh.

Remember the days in ye aulde fandom when someone would just stop talking to you and you never worked out why?

Ghosting, before it became common.

--

Just put in my expense requests for the start of May.

--

Hockey training has been cancelled because we don't have a coach, and we don't have a game on Sunday (long weekend in Australia: the King's birthday). I'm trying to get people over to the local club for dinner and drinks but...it's always a bit tricksy. Just me and a couple of other women, I think.

It's Friday night, 8pm. I'm tired.

Think I'll get a wash and go lie in bed with the cats around me and read.

Here, have a garden update.

Going home today!

Seriously, I like travel, but not when work comes on top of it. Although being away from Sydney for the last two weeks has been good - the rain that is flooding northern NSW is also raining down in Sydney, albeit not as hard.

May need to check up in the roof cavity tomorrow to get an idea of how it's going up there. Might need to do a bunnings trip first for some decent lighting.

(ps. It's been raining pretty hard in Sydney the last couple of weeks. We're due for a few days' break shortly, just as I get back, hopefully enough to get the garden sorted out)

--

Last day on client site in Melbourne. Next week we're being included on the meetings (theoretically) and told about the issues that arise. And so begins the battle for (office) supremacy…

(ugh. I ate too much breakfast too fast and now I am having regret. Or indigestion. *burp*)

One of the issues in any translation from development to support is starting to recognise the issues that are arising and which ones are going to be perennial problem. There's also the manner in which we take on those issues.

I am a "we'll take it as it comes" kind of person.

My colleague (who is the team lead in this instance) is a "prepare for everything" kind of person.

So we are doing a lot of work to map everything out, determine what is going on, identify where things are happening, and look at possible solutions for issues that are not yet happening, but which might.

I personally tend to think that's a waste of time, but I am perhaps a little bit like the guy whose roof never leaks when it doesn't rain. Also, a lot of guys on the tech monitoring side tend to want pages and pages of directions. (Pages and pages of directions sends me to sleep.)

I'd rather dig out the issue myself than be fed what someone else thinks it is. Of course, that isn't how most support guys tend to think of it. And the up-tops really hate the "trust the techs, they know how to fix it" - which, granted, they often would find that maybe the techs in question don't know how to fix it as knowledge is lost between one support group to the next.

Next week, the processing of handing over the reins is supposed to begin. Whether it does, how much of it actually is given to us, and how we handle it? That's another question. I kind of miss the days of my last client, where if there was a problem, I would mostly fix it on my own cognisance. Then again, the system of the last client was set up to expect issues like this and things which might fall through. This client is a lot more insistent that every little issue be logged. I'm bad at that...

Oh well, colleague is on top of that at least. I guess I'm going to have to get up to speed on what's required to do this, that, and the other…

Went out to visit a friend at Malvern this evening - a FB friend who I've been chatting with about the last six or seven years. Faith and gardening, mostly, but his family was instrumental in some early missions to a section of Indonesia, and there were a bunch of people from those churches who had come to Melbourne for a visit, and so there was gathering and food and company and sharing of stories and theology.

It was great. I was a little apprehensive - I've never met this friend before in person, he's about 70, I think, maybe 75. Still pretty hale, and unfortunately still working. His daughters are my age and a little bit older (the older one was at the dinner tonight and we got talking about perimenopause), so he must be at least 75. But he's lovely, his wife is lovely, it was delightful to talk to a bunch of people and to watch the exchange of stories and histories.

At the daughter's suggestion, I caught two trams back, and I'm glad she made the suggestions she did. A lot better lighting and not so much walking past areas that are a little bit of a problem...

But now I'm back, it's nearly 11pm and I haven't had a shower yet. Need to get to that and get to bed.

No more social dinners. (I did one last night, too, with a writing friend from, oh, 20 years ago. We talked a little bit about stories and people and politics and so forth, and there was duck laksa and so much of it I ended up having half of it for lunch today!

Oof. Anyway, last two nights will be 'quiet' (ie. not social, that's the plan, let's see if it pans out hahah) and then it's HOMEWARD HO.

I'm like this after two weeks. Imagine me after seven weeks...

3 degrees around here. The heater that I have is barely keeping the cold at bay. I think the space needs a few more curtains to cut down the area that needs warming...

Anyway, I'm just here for another night.

Good to catch up with my friend B, who used to be on LJ and has a DW account but probably hasn't used it in over a decade! I haven't seen her or her husband, C, since 2023 when her FIL died, and haven't seen her sons since...even longer. They were shorter than me when last I saw them, they have since shot up and tower over me at a 6-foot minimum. Haven't visited her family down here since before the pandemic, and she's had a lot going on in so many dimensions.

Got down here last night, ate pizza and had a long chat to catch up on all the things that don't get put on FB. Went for a walk today around town and did more talking about directions and futures and stuff, then back home for lunch, and out for dinner. Tomorrow is markets.

I gave her the rough (exceedingly rough) draft of my novel, and promptly found a bajillion spelling and name mistakes. I'm in the process of cleaning it up, but it's slow. Rewriting the next novel will be even slower, trying to fit everything in. There's a lot of stuff to get through!

For the cold tonight, I've piled a few extra things on the bed to help keep me warm - pillows, clothing, etc. It'll be fine, just a wee smidge colder than I'm used to (and I like things warm and toasty, but can't be helped). Like I said, it's only for one night.

Good to catch up with B though.

inexplicably tired. I even got 8 hours pretty solidly last night. (I think. I don't remember waking up anyway.)

Will try for more sleep. MOAR SLEEP.

Wish me luck.